Happy Holidays, idontlikegravy! (1/2)
Title: Something Called Living (1/2)
Author: Where We’re Going We Don’t Need...Names!
Written For: idontlikegravy
Fandoms: Highlander: the Series / Highlander: the Raven / Forever
Characters: Richie Ryan, Henry Morgan, Lucas Wahl, Abe Morgan, Joe Dawson, Liam Riley
Rating: PG-13 (some swearing and a touch of graphic violence)
Word Count: 19,600
Author’s Notes: Many, many thanks to ID Pam for the cheerleading, beta reading, and, in the end, the flat out rewriting of the bits I couldn’t do on my own. Not many people are willing to learn a whole new canon just to encourage a crossover. Any remaining mistakes, yadda yadda. This story is a Denial AU. Richie lives. Connor lives. Forever wasn’t canceled. WHEE!
Summary: Of all the morgues in all the world, Richie just had to wake up in Henry Morgan’s.
Richie's twenty year streak of not waking up from the dead in the morgue ended with a bang.
He awoke with the sudden thump of a heart that had lain dormant for too long and the gasp of air filling quiescent lungs. His whole body seized at the surge of life, then collapsed back onto the metal table, exhausted. In the silence that followed-while his body relearned how to circulate blood and his nerves how to send and receive signals-he heard a second gasp and the clang of a metal tool hitting the floor.
Oh, god. He wasn't alone. He fought back a groan and instead tried to pull together any plausible explanation for why the tag he felt pinching his toe might have been put there in error. Catalepsy? Mistaken identity? Overworked coroner?
“Henry?” he heard someone call. A man, and not the same person who was in the room with him.
“One moment, Lucas,” his occupant answered, in one phrase identifying himself both as Henry and as someone who wasn't prone to screaming as a first reaction to dead people returning to life. Throwing another surprise at him, Henry hissed, “Don't move,” at Richie before slipping from the room.
Though it was technically moving, Richie allowed his eyes to open; he had to get his bearings if he was going to get out of here with minimal fuss. The bright lights assaulted his vision at the same time as the astringent chemical scent assaulted his nose and a chill shook his warming body. He was definitely in the morgue. Naked. He in the morgue, naked, lying on the autopsy table. A quick slap down of his chest revealed that he'd probably awakened just in time to avoid being killed again through dissection. He'd never had to experience that particular horror, and he hoped to keep it that way.
Distantly, he heard Henry and the other guy, Lucas, talking, though he couldn't make out the words. For all he knew, Henry was telling him that one of their corpses was no longer dead. Richie had to get out there, but Henry's command stayed him. Without his clothes, he wouldn't be getting very far and there was no way he'd be able to scrounge up something to wear before Henry returned.
Time was, Richie would've taken any direct order and immediately defied it. He'd matured a little since then.
Mostly.
With a start, he recalled the last few minutes before his most recent death. He'd come downstairs early, planning to take some time before the dojo officially opened for the day to get his own workout in, when he'd caught sight of someone standing just to the right of the window, staring in through the bars. Had Richie been a little less attuned to the fact that someone was always Watching him, had he been a little less paranoid about people trying to kill him, had he been standing in a slightly different place on the mat, he'd never have noticed. The dojo was a new project, a page torn out of the Book of MacLeod because the storefront had been available, the rent as reasonable as New York City rents ever were, and Richie had seen enough of the neighborhood on his way through to know that the kids could use a place to hang out.
Though in a different city on the opposite coast, Richie felt a kinship to the neighborhood born of familiarity. He'd been missing Seacouver a lot lately. Since he was still decades away from being to safely return there, he decided almost on a whim to set up shop here.
He was surreptitiously studying the stranger, trying to assess the level of threat-a potential customer would come into the building; a potential mugger might try to lure him outside; a random martial arts enthusiast would probably not be hiding in the corner, unless he was shy-when he heard the frantic thumping of feet descending the stairs. His own storefront was separated by a hallway and staircase from an identical one that was currently doing time as thrift store. The floors above were apartments, one of which was Richie's. All of which someone was trying to hastily evacuate.
“Get out!” he heard the runner yell in a voice laden with the fear of someone who knows that whatever they're doing, it won't be enough. “Get out! Everyone out!”
It was a command he would have heeded if he'd been mortal. Maybe. Knowing that there were two more floors of offices upstairs and then the three floors of apartments above that, Richie dropped his jump rope, slammed through the hallway door, and raced upstairs to find anyone the caller's yell hadn't reached. At least a few of the residents had heard, and chosen to listen, because he had to push past a dozen or so neighbors whom he hadn't even been living amongst long enough to recognize on sight. The stairs creaked under the impact of all those feet, and for one moment at the top of the second landing, Richie feared that the whole staircase was going to collapse.
Then it didn't matter anymore. With a wash of heat as his only warning, the building blew up. A concussive force threw him back down the stairs. He was alive just long enough to see the flame rush at him, long enough to throw his arm over his eyes.
The door opened and Henry came back in, swiping his hands together with a satisfied air. He was a clean-shaven man, dark hair, in his late-30s. No Immortal signature marked him as a fellow player in the Game, nor could Richie get a clear look at either of the man's wrists to determine if he knew about the Game. “There, that should keep Lucas occupied for a few minutes. I do hope he doesn't catch on to to the fool's errand too quickly.” Crossing to a cabinet, he pulled out a bundle of cloth and tossed it to Richie while keeping his eyes carefully averted.
Richie accepted the sheet gratefully. He'd have preferred his own clothes or scrubs-Who was he kidding? He'd have preferred to not be in this situation at all.-but covering up wasn't really his biggest concern now, was it? “You don't seem very surprised.” His naked legs were stained black from the fire. Only a few unmarked streaks showed where he'd been burned badly enough that his skin had regenerated. Reaching down, he pulled off the tag that dangled from his toe and crumpled it.
“I assure you, I am very surprised,” Henry stated. “However, I'm not unaccustomed to encountering situations that have no easy explanation.” His lips creased in a private smile that quickly gave way to professional curiosity. “What interests me is that you don't appear surprised.”
“I'm not,” Richie answered, simply. He pushed to his feet, pulling the sheet even more tightly around himself, and began prowling around the morgue. There were two other tables with covered bodies on them, waiting their turn, but no sign of any of his things. “My shoes didn't survive the explosion, did they? My jacket?” Henry shook his head and Richie scowled. At least he hadn't been carrying his sword; he left that in the office when he was at work-his office...that had been in the building that...”Shit! I'm going to have to leave town.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, felt the grime. “What time is it?” He couldn't see a clock anywhere.
Henry pulled out a pocket watch-an old one, if Richie's time working in the antique store had taught him anything-and answered, confirming Richie's hope that he'd only been dead a few hours. He heaved a grateful sigh; there were worse fates than waking up in the morgue, and he had to remember that if he was going to get through the next few hours. Any more time dead and he might have ended up getting buried. Thinking about how close he might have come sent a shudder through him; he'd never had to learn how to escape from a grave, and there were no other Immortals in New York City who knew about him since Connor had moved back to Europe a few years ago, and thus no one who'd know to come dig him up.
Richie loved New York City, and as much as he knew he'd have to leave someday, he hadn't expected that someday to come so soon after arriving. Being a permanent adolescent in a city of over eight million people was easier than anywhere else he'd ever lived. Maybe he could just move to a different borough to start over. It wasn't like he had much to take with him. Anymore. He could sneak back to his old building tonight and see if his sword had survived the explosion. The lockbox with his money and backup paperwork should also be OK. His bike would be a loss, as would all his clothes, unless the fire department had gotten the fire under control quickly.
“Do you have any clothes I could borrow?” Richie turned toward Henry so fast that the man stepped back. “And maybe a few bucks for a cab? Unless my wallet is around here somewhere?” As soon as he said it, he groaned. His wallet was in his desk. He'd been in the sweats and tank top he wore for working out, which left no place to put a wallet, nor any reason to carry one. “Never mind. I didn't have a wallet on me.” He raked a hand over his head; he'd been growing his hair out in hopes of sneaking another year or two onto the identity by starting younger, and the water and soot stiffened curls felt so much like they had the last time he'd died in public that for a moment he forgot where he was.
“Your clothes are in evidence,” Henry answered. “I'm sure I can come up with some others, though I can't guarantee that they'll fit. I'd also suggest a shower. But I'm afraid that I can't let you leave.”
“Why not?” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how Henry planned to keep Richie from leaving. He bit the question back, not wanting to turn the situation antagonistic.
Henry's head was tilted and he was watching Richie, studying him in a way that made Richie feel a lot more self-conscious than being naked in front of this stranger had. “For starters, you're a material witness in a crime. The only witness, I might add.” He gestured at the other bodies. “No one else that we know of survived the explosion.”
Richie let his eyes drop closed for a moment in silent acknowledgment of the life lost. He didn't know who else had been in the building, but he knew that the toll was a lot higher than two. The other bodies were probably in the drawers or in cold storage somewhere. If the signs of damage to his own body was any indication, some of the other victims might even become permanent residents here because there wasn't enough left to identify.
“No one else escaped?” he asked, thinking of the person who'd sounded the warning and the others he'd seen on his way up the stairs. Some of them had to have been close enough to the door when the building blew up to have made it out.
Henry sighed the sigh of someone who knew that what he was about to say had no good interpretation. “We presume that everyone who made it outside before the explosion also managed to disappear into the woodwork. People in that part of town aren't fond of talking to the police.”
Richie nodded, well aware of both the attitude and the causes that spurned it. “Can you blame them? Half the people who live there have probably been arrested at some point. Or have reason to think they're going to be.” He certainly did. At least his own juvie record hadn't followed him to this life. But that didn't put him in the clear. The fact that he could easily get caught killing someone was never far from his mind after the way Martin Hyde had set him up all those years ago.
“Of course not.” Henry rubbed a thumb over his eyebrow. The gesture bared his wrist and revealed only unmarked skin. “Having their testimonies would make the investigation easier. Without them, we're limited to what we can learn from those who didn't survive.” He shot a knowing look at Richie. It was a look that carried a lot of weight.
“What if I told you that I didn't see anything?” Richie asked, grasping for the one out left to him.
“Did you?”
“No,” Richie said, then hoping to change the subject: “How long until that Lucas guy comes back? You said a few minutes....”
Henry gave a little start as if he'd forgotten that they could be interrupted any second. “Right. Yes, we can't have him seeing you looking...so alive.” He took in the empty exam table that Richie had been on. “And I'd better move one of these other patient people to the head of the line. Lucas will wonder how I finished with you so quickly, otherwise.”
“Yeah, not unless you're planning to tell him that the corpse got up and walked out.” Such a confession was always a possibility.
The private smile flashed across Henry's face again. “Your secret's safe with me. There's a locker room down the hall with showers. If you're careful, you should be able to make it without anyone else seeing you. Locker ten holds the Lost and Found. Anything of use you find in there, you can take. I'd recommend that you not go through the personal lockers-”
“I'm not a thief,” Richie interjected. Right now. He had been one before and he'd probably be one again-live long enough and all manner of skills had their uses. And their needs.
“My apologies,” Henry offered with a tip of his head. “I hope you'll come back after you make yourself presentable. I would dearly love to talk to you about what happened.”
“For the police report, right?” Richie asked, knowing full well that that wasn't what Henry meant.
Henry's response was only a lifting of his brows.
“Yeah, right.” Richie sighed. Without making any promises, he added: “Maybe.”
*~*~*
The shower gave Richie time to think. He watched the ash, soot, and blood run down the drain in gray and pink eddies and felt himself become more human by the second. No matter what else happened, he had to go recover his sword. A city the size of New York wasn't a safe place for an Immortal to walk around without his weapon, no matter what kind of legacy Connor had left behind. After that, he needed to find something to eat and a place to crash for the night. Reviving always left him starving and exhausted.
In the morning, he could try to scrounge up some cash. He cast his mind around, trying to remember where his other Immortal friends were living these days, and what names they were going under. He came up blank. He'd only been in the City a few weeks, himself, not even long enough to get used to his new name.
Then he had to worry about this Henry guy. The man was too smart, too observant. If Richie went back to talk to him, Henry would ask all the questions that Richie really didn't want to answer. Immortals worked hard to keep knowledge of themselves out of the regular world.
On the other hand, broke, homeless, and stranded in a new city, Richie really could use an ally.
The water was running clear now, so Richie accepted its offering of heat into his beleaguered muscles a few moments longer, then shut it off. He used the sheet as a towel, doing his best to avoid rubbing the dirtiest parts over his newly cleaned skin, then went to see what he could find in locker ten.
What he found was a pair of gray sweatpants that were so old and ratty that they had to have been “lost” on purpose. He also found a neon green muscle shirt and a pair of flip-flops that almost fit. He eyed the selection for a moment, then grabbed a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap. Thank god it wasn't winter yet, and that no one he knew would see him dressed like this.
Despite Henry's admonition and his own rejection of the label, Richie also riffled through the handful of personal lockers that didn't have locks on them. Tucked in the corner of one woman's jean's pocket, he found a folded ten dollar bill and took it. He wasn't a thief, but he needed the money right now if he was going to get across town. Making note of the locker number, he vowed to pay her back as soon as he could.
Now that he was clean and...not wearing a sheet...he moved to address his other needs. A survey of the floor yielded the employee lounge, in which he found a box with a couple stale donuts left over from the morning and a Keurig. This, he justified to himself, wasn't thieving because they were here for anyone to eat, so he did, wolfing down the donuts so fast that he nearly choked himself on inhaled crumbs.
He was still doubled over, coughing, trying to clear his lungs when a pair of sneakers appeared in his field of vision.
“Um, hello?” their owner said.
Richie waved, both to fend off any would-be help and to acknowledge that he'd heard the speaker and was unable to answer.
“Not that I’m not digging your personal style, but I’m pretty sure it’s not casual Friday. Who are you?”
Through streaming eyes, Richie took in the speaker. Light brown hair, narrow face, tall, in blue scrubs over a black shirt. Not Henry, and certainly not bearing the quiet confidence that Henry had. “Ignore me,” he gasped out. “Just swallowed wrong.”
“Are you sure?,” the man asked. He took a couple steps closer, hovering anxiously. He pointed to the coffee cup. “Is that the Jet Fuel brand? Better watch out. I swear I had acid for a week after one cup.” His face lit up, a little overeager. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before. You new here?”
Richie coughed the last of the crumbs into his hand, glanced at the now unappealing bite of donut that remained, and pitched it all into the garbage. “Oh. Yeah. I'm, uh...” He cast about for an excuse, and his eyes settled on the cup of coffee that had just finished brewing. “I just came down to get some coffee for the, uh, boss. I'm the intern.”
“An intern? Don’t you guys have your own machine upstairs?”
“Yeah. The boss… really likes that Jet Fuel stuff.” Richie cringed at the lack of finesse to his lies. He was usually a lot suaver than this. Straightening up, he grabbed the coffee and a handful of creamer and sugar packets. “I'd better get this upstairs before the boss flips out.”
“Hey, I totally get it. My boss gets crazy, too, all, ‘no Lucas, I will not drink tea made in a machine.’” He mimicked spitting something out, face scrunched up.
Ah, so this was the Lucas from before. “Yeah, haha,” Richie said. “Bosses.” Keep it vague; let the listener hear what he wanted to hear; get out of the situation as quickly as possible. He'd learned all this shuttling through the foster care system, and yet it was still tempting to embellish the details. He started for the door and had almost made it when Lucas spoke again.
“Hey, but seriously, why are you dressed like that? Some prank on the new guy?”
Lucas really wasn't going to let it go, was he? Richie glanced down at his outfit-of-discards that were too mismatched to even pass off as a dress down day. He looked like a college student who'd just rolled out of bed five minutes before the start of his key final exam, not an intern in a city office. He opened his mouth to snap off a witty comeback, and his brain mutinously refused to supply one. “Look,” he managed, “I really have to go before the boss notices I’m gone and, yeah.” He lurched toward the door and its promise of escape.
“Hey!” Lucas stepped in front of him, and Richie dodged to the right, grateful for his trained reflexes. At least they still worked.
His plastic-clad feet slipped on the Linoleum floor as he scrambled past, a quickly thrown out hand all that kept him from careening into a wall. The sugar packets flew from his grip. He didn’t stop to pick them up.
“You forgot your coffee,” Lucas called after him.
*~*~*
One of the things that Richie loved about New York City was that no one cared how he looked. He'd been hoping to capitalize on that when he moved here. Since leaving Seacouver, he hadn't been able to live in any one place for more than three or four years before his youthful appearance caught up with him. Here, he hoped, he might be able to push for five or six years. Maybe more, if he planned carefully about what parts of the city to live in. He'd never be able to put down roots in a place, not like Mac or Methos or any of the other Immortals who could live fifteen, twenty years in an identity before needing to move on, but maybe he could stay long enough to not feel like a stranger.
He found a bus that would take him in the direction of his neighborhood and boarded it without so much as an askance look from the driver. He had something resembling a shirt on his chest, something resembling shoes on his feet, and enough money to cover the fare.
The bus dropped him off a half dozen blocks from his building, which meant he had to walk. The night air was cool, raising a chill on his arms, and the streets busy enough that he didn't have to worry about another Immortal surprising him. Even so, he kept himself alert, noting the entrances to alleys and the proximity of all the myriad storefront churches that seemed to spring up in buildings that had outlived their commercial use. Several times, he had to stop to let the blisters on his feet heal.
He smelled the disaster first. The acrid reek of burned wood and plastic hung heavy in the air and he slowed his pace, wanting to drag out those last inevitable moments before he had to face the reality of the loss of his home. Turning the corner, he saw it: the husk of the old building. Its windows were gone, their glass littering the sidewalk in chunks that glimmered under the yellow glow of the street lamps. The shards would have been pretty were it not for what they meant.
For a long moment he stood, taking it in. The explosion had really happened. Everything he owned was gone.
Ignoring the glass-his feet would heal from that, too-he pushed past the crime scene tape and stepped through empty frame where the front door used to be. There were no lights inside save what filtered in from the street, which meant he had to rely on what little spatial memory he'd been developing as he navigated the wreckage of the interior. The ceilings and walls still stood, which he assumed meant that the explosion itself had been on the top floors and the resulting fire had destroyed everything else. It was hard to breathe. Noxious fumes filled the air and everything he touched was either soaking wet or still smoldering.
Eventually, he worked his way to where his office had been. The door was gone, probably fallen to the floor or burned away entirely, and the rest of the room was swallowed in darkness. Feeling dizzy, but not about to quit now, he went in. With shuffling steps he pushed through the debris, burning his toes, his fingers until he found the remains of the wall where his sword hung. Leaving it there had been a compromise that allowed the weapon to be nearby without being in reach of eager and naive hands who knew about the dangers of guns but not blades.
Richie could too well remember being a teenager in a world before he knew about Immortals, and how he viewed swords and sword fighting as unutterably cool, and also so antiquated that he couldn't conceive of swords being weapons in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same purpose, as the switchblade he sometimes kept in his pocket or the handguns that so many of his friends kept in their waistbands. Ironically, it had only taken two shots to the chest for him to start to appreciate how much more deadly swords could be.
He found it, the hilt joining his hand as if it had been searching for him, too. The metal was warm, but didn't feel warped or damaged in the cursory pat down he was able to give it. His relief at being armed again was so immense that he almost passed out again right there. Of everything he'd owned, his sword was the one thing he had no way to replace. Holding it close, he resumed looking for the lockbox.
It wasn't there, not in the remains of the desk nor on the sodden bookshelves where trophies from past competitions had been melted into heaps. Someone else must have gotten to it first, maybe one of the police officers or a firefighter? He groaned and gave serious consideration to letting the fumes overtake him. Only the thought of waking up in Henry's morgue again kept him moving. He could come back in the morning, he decided, to make a more thorough search by the light of the day.
As soon as he made it back outside, he cleared a patch of cement in front of the wall and sank down to catch his breath.
The night had settled down hard while Richie had been inside the remains of the building. The street was as quiet as he'd ever seen it, everyone who had a place to go having decided to go there. In the apartments across from him, he saw a few lights, a few shadows of movement as people crossed in front of their windows, but even the music and shreds of arguments that always seemed to spring up when the sun went down were absent. People were laying low, staying quiet: A reaction to the police presence from earlier, respect for their dead neighbors, fear that they could be next.
Richie sat with his sword cradled across his lap and stared out into that silence. He'd had to change lives a few times since becoming Immortal, but never like this. Never as the result of everything he'd built being yanked out from under him. He'd come close in Paris when he died in front of everyone during his first big race all those years ago. It had been devastating, but ultimately all he'd done was return to Seacouver and pick up his old life where it had left off. This was the first time he didn't have an old life to return to, the first time he would be moving to the next one without any semblance of moving forward, or any safety-net to fall back on.
The crunch of footsteps on glass drew his attention to the man approaching him. The swirl of a long coat set him on guard and he tightened his grip on the hilt of the sword, though he didn't stand up. The man came to a stop in front of Richie, positioned so that the street light illuminated an already familiar face.
“It's not necessary to leave,” Henry stated. His hands were shoved in his pockets and he held the coat tight around him, making Richie aware for the first time that the night was cooler than he'd thought. “I thought I'd find you here.” When Richie didn't say anything, he continued. “We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Dr. Henry Morgan.” He wasn't close enough to offer his hand for a shake, so he gave a short bow instead. The gesture had an antiquated flare that reminded Richie strongly of Mac.
“Richie.” He didn't offer a last name because he didn't know which one to use.
Henry acknowledged his name with a tip of his chin. “Well, Richie. As I was saying, I believe your plans to leave are a bit premature.”
“I died,” Richie reminded him. The words were clipped, bitter. “I can't exactly stay here.”
Henry drew a breath and cast his gaze up and down the street, taking in the dilapidated buildings, graffiti, and garbage strewn gutters. He didn't give away what he thought of what he saw, but the knot of his tie and hard creases of his collar, the quality of his coat, and the cut of his hair indicated to Richie a man who couldn't imagine why anyone would choose to live here. That he was about to explain why Richie could stay didn't matter. Richie felt himself growing preemptively defensive and he struggled to his feet so that when he had to defend his choices, he could at least be on an equal level. He was almost knocked back over when Henry said, “None of them saw you.”
For a moment, Richie thought that Henry was referencing his earlier comment about witnesses staying quiet, but Henry continued his explanation with all the calm recitation of someone who'd given a great deal of thought to the topic.
“Everyone in the building died. Everyone who made it out was worried only about themselves and their families. Any recollection they have about who was inside and who wasn't can only be supported by the evidence, and since you're clearly not dead, they'll have to assume you made it out. The only people who know know differently are the firefighters who carried your body out and the paramedics who transported you downtown, and I can guarantee that they won't recognize you whole and with a pulse.”
Hearing it put like that, Richie slumped back against the wall. The last time he'd ended up in the morgue, he'd died in front of thousands of witnesses. Somehow it had never occurred to him that two disasters didn't go hand-in-hand. No one had seen him die. People might look at him and see a miracle, but not the kind he was afraid of them seeing.
“No one saw anything,” Henry repeated, as if he needed to convince Richie of that truth.
Richie started to nod, then realized that the truth wasn't that simple. Someone had been watching, hadn't they? Two someones, in fact. The first he didn't need to worry about. It was the other, the one who had been staring at him right before the explosion whom he did. He wondered if that person knew what was about to happen and wanted to see it happen to him. He scanned the shadows along the doorways and the edges of the buildings looking for the one person who wasn't supposed to be there, and the one person who was. Seeing neither, it occurred to him that the explosion had claimed both of them as victims, after all.
“The other people who were killed,” he started, only continuing after Henry indicated that he was listening. “Was one of them a black woman, about twenty-five?” He didn't know her name because they'd never met; he wasn't supposed to know she existed. “She'd have a tattoo on the inside of her wrist.”
“What did the tattoo look like?”
Richie described it as best he could. He'd only seen the design a few times, but some things were hard to forget. He knew she wore one. He'd sought its presence out on purpose after he'd caught her following him around. As soon as he knew for sure who she was, he'd forced himself to stop seeing her and to get on with living his life as if she wasn't there keeping notes.
Henry frowned in thought, then shook his head. “I don't recall anyone with that tattoo. Who is she? Your girlfriend?”
Richie took a second to bask in the news. “No.”
“Does she have something to do with the explosion?”
“Not that I know of,” Richie answered, honestly. He had to find a phone. His own was somewhere in the burned out desk, but he thought he remembered seeing a payphone in one of the bodegas he'd passed on his walk. He only hoped it still worked; there was one person he knew who didn't change identities, had never changed phone numbers, and who might be able to tell him how to get in contact with one of the other Immortals in the city-as long as he wasn't Hunting them, and right now playing the Game was the last thing he wanted to do. “Thank you for helping me.” He offered as much of a smile as he could feel right now. “I have to go take care of some things
Henry hurried after him. “You're going to walk down the street carrying that sword?” He sounded alarmed.
Richie glanced down at blade swinging by his side. “Bastard.”
“What?”
“The sword. It's a Gothic Bastard.”
“No doubt a treasured heirloom, which is why you went back to dig it out of the rubble. However, do you really think that walking around openly with it is a good idea? What if someone calls the police?”
That pulled Richie up short. He normally kept the sword in his coat, as all Immortals did, and didn't bother with what the police thought. Oddly enough, the recent spread of concealed and open carry laws only covered guns. There was no such thing as a sword permit. However, if there was a secret to concealing a sword in a muscle shirt, no one had bothered to teach it to him. “I'm not leaving it behind.”
“No, I wouldn't expect you to. Perhaps you'll let me carry it for you?” He gestured down the length of the coat he was wearing. It wouldn't have the built in sheath that an Immortal's coat did, but it was definitely long enough to make a decent temporary cover.
“Why?”
Henry clapped a hand on Richie's shoulder and turned him so they were face to face. “I'm hoping that if I help you, you'll help me.”
“You've already helped me,” Richie pointed out. “Waking up in the morgue sucks bad enough without having to sneak around town in a sheet.” His eyes narrowed in realization that he was incurring debts that he really didn't want to pay off. Immortals had always made a point to keep themselves hidden from mortals, and so far Richie had managed to go three decades without changing that.
“That does beg the question: where were you planning to sneak to? You were living in that building, yes?”
With a shrug that freed his arm, Richie started back down the sidewalk. “Look, I just wanna make a phone call. This has been an amazingly awful day, and the sooner I can get it over with, the better.”
Reaching into his pocket, Henry pulled out a cell phone and held it out for Richie to take. “You can use mine. Don't worry about any long distance charges.” His brow furrowed as if he thought he'd said something wrong, but he recovered quickly. “I hope you know how to use one of these. I had to get it for work, and so far I haven't mastered more than learning to answer it.”
“Yeah, I know how to use a cell phone,” he sniped, without making any move to take it. The offer was tempting. He'd been planning to call Joe collect-contingent on the pay phone working at all-with the assumption that whomever answered at the bar would accept the charges. Barring that, the small collection of change in his pocket might be enough to get a couple minutes of call time.
“You can delete the number as soon as you're done with the call,” Henry added with a sigh. “It's my understanding that that's easy to do, though I haven't had reason to try it for myself.”
Reluctantly, Richie handed over his sword. Henry accepted it, checked its weight and balance like he knew how to handle swords, and tucked it inside his coat. With his arm canted across his body like he'd injured it, he anchored the sword into place. The phone switched hands next. Richie keyed in the number, heard the rings, counted to himself as they passed. Voice mail. “Damn!” He left a message, keeping it vague but putting as much urgency into what he did say as possible. “Call me back as soon as you can,” he concluded, “And, don't worry, I'm not going to lose my head over this.” There, that should give Joe some idea what was going on. Between that and his Watcher's report, Joe might even refrain from bludgeoning him with his Oath.
“Try again later,” Henry suggested gently.
“Sure,” Richie agreed.
“In the meantime, I haven't had a chance to eat dinner. Would you care to join me? My treat.”
Richie thought about refusing, but he really did need more than a stale donut. By using Henry's phone, he'd also tethered himself to the man until Joe called back. And he'd handed over his sword, too. Goddamn, did dying make him stupid. On top of all that, what was one more stupid thing? Glancing around to make sure there were no prying ears, he said, “I'm Immortal. That's what you really want to know, right?” He splayed his hands in a silent “there it is,” and internally braced himself for the fallout.
Henry blinked hard and gave him the once over that came of seeing someone with new eyes. “Then, why was there a body...”
“I can die,” Richie said, mistaking the direction of Henry's question. The man had seen him come back from the dead; what more proof did he want? “Obviously. It's just not permanent. Or fun.” He rubbed a hand over his close-cropped curls, the hat having fallen off somewhere in the building, and chided himself again on his poor choices.
Once more, Henry glanced up and down the street. It remained quiet, but they both knew that could change at any second. “If you don't object, I suggest we adjourn to someplace private. I took a cab here. It's right down the street with the meter running. The cabbie is probably wondering if I'm planning to return. Shall we ease the poor man's mind?” He moved as if to start walking away, thought better of it. “I think we have some things to talk about.”
Getting in cars with strangers was supposed to be the worst kind of stupid. Especially strangers who picked you up on the street and offered free food. A last glance at the wreckage of his home told him that he really had no choice. Richie shrugged. What could happen? It wasn't like he could get killed. “Why not?”
“Very good,” Henry responded. He made a sweeping gesture to indicate the way, and nearly dropped the sword.
As they were approaching the cab, Richie decided to return a little of the aid he'd been given. “You'll want to sit on the driver's side.”
“You have a preference?”
“Nah. It's just that it's easier to slip the sword between the seats and the door than it is to stab it through the cushions. Cheaper, too.”
In the bright headlights from the cab, Richie couldn't miss the shocked expression on Henry's face; the look of someone who thought he had it all figured out discovering that he was wrong.
*~*~*
They made the trip to Henry's in silence, by mutual agreement that the biggest topics should be saved for when they could both give their full attention and when no one else was listening, and the smaller topics weren't worth the waste of air. For once, the traffic cooperated and the trip passed without any hitches.
Only as they were walking into his building, the sword once again tucked into his coat, did Henry say, “I'm sorry; I should have thought to tell you sooner: I don't live alone.”
Richie's brows shot up. “Yeah, you should have mentioned that before now. That's what we call 'useful information.' What do you have? A wife? Kids?” He tried to picture Henry as a family man with a brood of dark-haired children climbing up his knees, and found that the image came easily. Yeah, he should have anticipated that their 'private' discussion would not be entirely alone.
Henry's mouth curled into an indulgent smile, yet a darkening in his eyes hinted at a deeper pain. Richie recognized the look of someone who had lost a loved one and who still wasn't able to think about them without pain. “Let me introduce you. For what it's worth, I trust him completely.”
He led the way inside and gave Richie a moment to take in the well-appointed apartment. It was the kind of place that had been lived in for a long time by someone with expensive tastes and the pocket book to indulge them. The eye that Richie had developed as a thief noted several antiques on display that would be worth a small fortune to the right buyers. He let out a low whistle in appreciation, and kept his hands to himself.
“Where would you like this?” Henry asked, handing over the sword as if he had complete trust that the stranger he'd just brought into his home wouldn't do any harm, even when given a weapon. It was a pact, of sorts, and Richie accepted it.
A glance over the room for likely hiding places revealed plenty of options. He could keep the sword next to him, on display and within easy reach, but his instinct for concealing it made that unappealing. He also didn't want to scare Henry's family, as he suspected that he'd be appealing to their generosity over the next few hours. Footsteps from the other room hastened his decision; he slipped the sword under the couch and spun around, hoping that he'd become good enough at this kind of subterfuge to keep the guilt off his face.
The person who entered was an older man, maybe ten years Joe's senior with graying hair and a bulbous nose. He had on beige slacks, an argyle sweater, and a pair of red oven mitts. “Henry? I did hear you come in. I was just putting-” He stopped on seeing Richie, a sweep of his eyes taking in the atrocious outfit and turning back to Henry with the unspoken question about why the person wearing it was here.
Henry clapped a hand on Richie's back, urging him forward and demonstrating the trust he'd extended in private. “Abe, this is Richie. He's a witness in a case I'm working on and he's in need of a place to stay for a few days.”
“The police are asking you to keep track of the witnesses now?” Abe asked.
“Richie's a special situation,” Henry explained. “Let's just say that I've taken the initiative.”
“They don't know he's here, do they?”
Henry's gaze dipped in awareness of his rule breaking. Awareness, but not shame, Richie noted.
Shaking his head in exasperation, Abe pulled off the oven mitts and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Richie. I'm Henry's room-”
“-Son,” Henry supplied. “Abe is my son.”
Abe intoned Henry's name like a warning and Henry challenged him back with the kind of glare that fathers gave their recalcitrant children, that MacLeod had hit Richie with a million times during that first year Richie lived with him and a few thousand times after, and Richie knew that he was hearing the truth.
He continued the handshake and the rest of the pleasantry because there was no reason not to, then stepped back and took a long, hard look at Henry. By admitting that Abe was his son, Henry had revealed that he was also older than he looked, and there was only one explanation for that that Richie knew of: immortality.
Immortals didn't show their age in the lines of their faces; that was half the point. Richie well knew the difficulty of judging someone's inside age based on their outside age. He'd also been around Immortals long enough, and had been one long enough, to start to recognize some of the more subtle ways that age showed: the favoring of a posture or gestures that people their apparent age didn't use, anachronistic manners or speech patterns, the flash of bafflement when confronted with a particularly modern attitude or expectation. He'd seen the way Henry had handled the sword. The bow of greeting. The phone. He'd caught all the clues, and simply hadn't put them together.
Because he couldn't feel Henry. Immortals had always been able to sense others of their kind. Without it, the Game would be an exercise in stealth and assassination, and the only protection would be complete seclusion. The mere thought of an Immortal who didn't advertise his Presence made Richie's stomach tie itself in a hard knot, his mouth go dry. He'd hated having to learn to kill the others, but he hated more the helplessness of not having the chance to try.
“How?” he asked, dropping bonelessly onto the couch.
“Abe, would you be so kind as to get Richie some decent clothes. I think I have some that will fit him. And put together a couple plates. Neither of us have had a chance to eat dinner.”
Richie didn't hear how Abe responded or if Henry said anything else to him. The next thing he knew, Henry was squatting on the floor next to him, pressing a glass of water into his hand. “It was a shock to me too the first time I met someone else like me. Take some deep breaths; fainting won't do either of us any favors. I assure you, I am immortal, just like you are.”
Richie shook his head, frustrated because Henry was talking about the wrong things. “No, you're not, you can't be...” He gulped for a breath, then sought to center himself like during a battle, when not being in control would only get himself killed. It took a minute, and Henry gave it to him.
“I was shot,” Henry explained. He opened up enough buttons on his shirt to reveal the pucker of scar tissue over his heart where the bullet had entered. No one could have survived what caused that wound; Richie certainly hadn't. “I died. I came back. That was...a long time ago.” He said the last like he was withholding the number because he thought it would be too unbelievable. “I haven't aged a day since.”
Richie nodded along. He knew the shtick. He just didn't know how Henry didn't register a Presence. Rubbing his hands over his face, he debated how to bring this up to Joe. Maybe the Watchers had records of this kind of thing. Maybe Methos would know-though getting a straight answer out of him was never a sure thing
Henry stood up and stepped away. When he came back a moment later, he presented Richie with a selection of photographs. Old ones, showing an unaging face through time. “This is all the proof I can provide right now, besides my word.” In his tone, Richie heard the eagerness of someone desperate to be understood. Someone who was desperate for a person who could understand, fully and completely. Hadn’t this guy ever had a teacher? No sooner did he think the question than Richie had the answer: of course he didn’t; if no one could feel him, then no one would know what he was. “When I die,” Henry continued, “my body vanishes. I'm reborn in water.”
Richie’s head jerked up in surprise. That was different. “Water? Like some kind of baptism? You mean you're not just...dead?”
“I know it's hard to accept,” Henry stated. “Your resurrection was certainly more dramatic than what happens to me.”
It didn't sound like it, but Richie wasn't going to argue the point. He shuffled through the pictures, though he didn't need to. The oldest one was of Henry and a blonde woman and a baby. The woman's hairstyle dated the picture to the 1940s. He could do the math. He also knew that the oldest picture wasn't the oldest possible picture. “I believe you,” he said, handing the photos back. “You've obviously been around for a long time.” As one of the youngest in the Game, he'd had to learn to estimate the ages of his potential opponents based on their tells; knowing whether he going against someone with fifty years more experience than he had or fifty times more might be all that saved him. Reviewing what he'd observed, he said, “That's Abe in the pictures, isn't it? The baby? You only keep them around because they're important to him.” At Henry's nod, he continued, “I'd guess...you're older than a century but not ancient.”
“Abe has accused me of personally knowing the dinosaurs,” Henry responded with a short laugh.
“I think all kids say that about their parents.” Richie took a sip of water, then a longer swig when the first one didn't taste like anything it shouldn't. “I don't think you're that old. Two, maybe three centuries?”
A look of surprise crossed Henry's face. “You don't think multiple centuries is old?”
“I've known a few people who were older.” A lot older, he thought. So much older that he couldn't conceptualize what their lifespans even meant. Before Henry could ask about that, Richie pressed on with his real question, “Why can't I feel you?” He touched the back of his head where the sense of another Immortal started like a block of ice being dragged down his spine.
“What do you mean? Is there something wrong with your sense of touch? Are you suffering residual nerve damage from the fire? I can only imagine the trauma your body must have undergone regenerating as it did-”
Richie stopped him with a gesture. “Are you saying that you can't feel me, either?” He didn't know if that was a relief. Being completely insensate to other Immortals would be a liability that Henry would have to keep secret or he'd be taken out by the first headhunter who found out. It might be enough to keep him out of the Game entirely. Again, he touched the back of his neck, hoping the physicality would help Henry understand what he meant.
Instead of answering, Henry stood up, crossed over to the sideboard, and poured himself a drink. He hesitated a second, then poured a second one, which he brought over and set on the coffee table in front of Richie. “I assume you're also somewhat older than you appear?” he asked, with a nod toward the glass.
“Well, I'm still a few years shy of a century...” Richie cracked his first smile since the explosion, then decided to answer the question fairly. “Yeah, I'm old enough. I just turned forty-one.”
Nodding, Henry continued, “I'd like to hear your story. Or, if you prefer, I'll tell you mine, first.” He swallowed back his drink and thumped the empty onto the table, then settled into the chair next to Richie. “I'm beginning to suspect that our respective immortalities aren't the same at all.”
As much as he wanted the offered drink, Richie decided to stick with the water. His stomach chose that moment to remind him of one reason that was a good call. “Did you say Abe was going to bring in some food?”
“I asked him to wait in the kitchen until I got you settled. He knows my secret, but yours isn't mine to tell.”
Did telling a mortal about Immortals count if they already had one in their life? “Probably be easier if we did,” Richie suggested. “It'll be better if he hears it straight up than puts together the pieces on his own.”
“Are you absolutely certain?”
“If it'll get me a square meal, I'll tell anybody anything right now.”
Abe had to have been listening at the door because Richie had barely finished speaking when he came into the living room with three plates balanced on his arm like he was channeling his inner waiter. With a flourish, he set one in front of Henry, one in front of Richie, and the third in front of the empty seat on the couch. “Dinner is served!”
“You are welcome to join us,” Henry suggested, his tone drier than dust. “I'd say we should eat at the table like adults, but since we're only going to end up here again, we can save ourselves a few steps.”
From his pocket, Abe produced the silverware and began distributing it. “That sounds like a good plan. There's plenty more food in the kitchen, if anyone wants seconds.” His chore done, he lowered himself into the empty seat, yet stayed leaning forward in anticipation of whatever it was he thought Henry wanted to talk about.
“While we eat, we can bring you up to speed on the case. It's a very exciting one.”
“The case?” Abe asked, his eager expression dimming.
Richie had cut off a huge bite of the stuffed chicken breast and shoved it into his mouth. Still chewing, he decided to have his own fun. To Henry, he said, “Actually, I'd like to know what you think happened. The official story, ya know? I mean, I remember the explosion, but then I was dead for most of the afternoon. Did I miss anything good?” Shoving another bite in his mouth, he started counting silently until Abe worked through what he'd said.
It took almost twenty seconds before Abe started opening and closing his mouth wordlessly, and another ten before he looked to Henry for confirmation that he'd heard correctly. When he finally spoke, all he could manage was one word: “Dead?”
“Hm?” Henry inquired, as if he hadn't been paying attention. “Did I not mention that Richie's story is also going to be long?”
*~*~*
On to Part Two
Author: Where We’re Going We Don’t Need...Names!
Written For: idontlikegravy
Fandoms: Highlander: the Series / Highlander: the Raven / Forever
Characters: Richie Ryan, Henry Morgan, Lucas Wahl, Abe Morgan, Joe Dawson, Liam Riley
Rating: PG-13 (some swearing and a touch of graphic violence)
Word Count: 19,600
Author’s Notes: Many, many thanks to ID Pam for the cheerleading, beta reading, and, in the end, the flat out rewriting of the bits I couldn’t do on my own. Not many people are willing to learn a whole new canon just to encourage a crossover. Any remaining mistakes, yadda yadda. This story is a Denial AU. Richie lives. Connor lives. Forever wasn’t canceled. WHEE!
Summary: Of all the morgues in all the world, Richie just had to wake up in Henry Morgan’s.
Richie's twenty year streak of not waking up from the dead in the morgue ended with a bang.
He awoke with the sudden thump of a heart that had lain dormant for too long and the gasp of air filling quiescent lungs. His whole body seized at the surge of life, then collapsed back onto the metal table, exhausted. In the silence that followed-while his body relearned how to circulate blood and his nerves how to send and receive signals-he heard a second gasp and the clang of a metal tool hitting the floor.
Oh, god. He wasn't alone. He fought back a groan and instead tried to pull together any plausible explanation for why the tag he felt pinching his toe might have been put there in error. Catalepsy? Mistaken identity? Overworked coroner?
“Henry?” he heard someone call. A man, and not the same person who was in the room with him.
“One moment, Lucas,” his occupant answered, in one phrase identifying himself both as Henry and as someone who wasn't prone to screaming as a first reaction to dead people returning to life. Throwing another surprise at him, Henry hissed, “Don't move,” at Richie before slipping from the room.
Though it was technically moving, Richie allowed his eyes to open; he had to get his bearings if he was going to get out of here with minimal fuss. The bright lights assaulted his vision at the same time as the astringent chemical scent assaulted his nose and a chill shook his warming body. He was definitely in the morgue. Naked. He in the morgue, naked, lying on the autopsy table. A quick slap down of his chest revealed that he'd probably awakened just in time to avoid being killed again through dissection. He'd never had to experience that particular horror, and he hoped to keep it that way.
Distantly, he heard Henry and the other guy, Lucas, talking, though he couldn't make out the words. For all he knew, Henry was telling him that one of their corpses was no longer dead. Richie had to get out there, but Henry's command stayed him. Without his clothes, he wouldn't be getting very far and there was no way he'd be able to scrounge up something to wear before Henry returned.
Time was, Richie would've taken any direct order and immediately defied it. He'd matured a little since then.
Mostly.
With a start, he recalled the last few minutes before his most recent death. He'd come downstairs early, planning to take some time before the dojo officially opened for the day to get his own workout in, when he'd caught sight of someone standing just to the right of the window, staring in through the bars. Had Richie been a little less attuned to the fact that someone was always Watching him, had he been a little less paranoid about people trying to kill him, had he been standing in a slightly different place on the mat, he'd never have noticed. The dojo was a new project, a page torn out of the Book of MacLeod because the storefront had been available, the rent as reasonable as New York City rents ever were, and Richie had seen enough of the neighborhood on his way through to know that the kids could use a place to hang out.
Though in a different city on the opposite coast, Richie felt a kinship to the neighborhood born of familiarity. He'd been missing Seacouver a lot lately. Since he was still decades away from being to safely return there, he decided almost on a whim to set up shop here.
He was surreptitiously studying the stranger, trying to assess the level of threat-a potential customer would come into the building; a potential mugger might try to lure him outside; a random martial arts enthusiast would probably not be hiding in the corner, unless he was shy-when he heard the frantic thumping of feet descending the stairs. His own storefront was separated by a hallway and staircase from an identical one that was currently doing time as thrift store. The floors above were apartments, one of which was Richie's. All of which someone was trying to hastily evacuate.
“Get out!” he heard the runner yell in a voice laden with the fear of someone who knows that whatever they're doing, it won't be enough. “Get out! Everyone out!”
It was a command he would have heeded if he'd been mortal. Maybe. Knowing that there were two more floors of offices upstairs and then the three floors of apartments above that, Richie dropped his jump rope, slammed through the hallway door, and raced upstairs to find anyone the caller's yell hadn't reached. At least a few of the residents had heard, and chosen to listen, because he had to push past a dozen or so neighbors whom he hadn't even been living amongst long enough to recognize on sight. The stairs creaked under the impact of all those feet, and for one moment at the top of the second landing, Richie feared that the whole staircase was going to collapse.
Then it didn't matter anymore. With a wash of heat as his only warning, the building blew up. A concussive force threw him back down the stairs. He was alive just long enough to see the flame rush at him, long enough to throw his arm over his eyes.
The door opened and Henry came back in, swiping his hands together with a satisfied air. He was a clean-shaven man, dark hair, in his late-30s. No Immortal signature marked him as a fellow player in the Game, nor could Richie get a clear look at either of the man's wrists to determine if he knew about the Game. “There, that should keep Lucas occupied for a few minutes. I do hope he doesn't catch on to to the fool's errand too quickly.” Crossing to a cabinet, he pulled out a bundle of cloth and tossed it to Richie while keeping his eyes carefully averted.
Richie accepted the sheet gratefully. He'd have preferred his own clothes or scrubs-Who was he kidding? He'd have preferred to not be in this situation at all.-but covering up wasn't really his biggest concern now, was it? “You don't seem very surprised.” His naked legs were stained black from the fire. Only a few unmarked streaks showed where he'd been burned badly enough that his skin had regenerated. Reaching down, he pulled off the tag that dangled from his toe and crumpled it.
“I assure you, I am very surprised,” Henry stated. “However, I'm not unaccustomed to encountering situations that have no easy explanation.” His lips creased in a private smile that quickly gave way to professional curiosity. “What interests me is that you don't appear surprised.”
“I'm not,” Richie answered, simply. He pushed to his feet, pulling the sheet even more tightly around himself, and began prowling around the morgue. There were two other tables with covered bodies on them, waiting their turn, but no sign of any of his things. “My shoes didn't survive the explosion, did they? My jacket?” Henry shook his head and Richie scowled. At least he hadn't been carrying his sword; he left that in the office when he was at work-his office...that had been in the building that...”Shit! I'm going to have to leave town.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, felt the grime. “What time is it?” He couldn't see a clock anywhere.
Henry pulled out a pocket watch-an old one, if Richie's time working in the antique store had taught him anything-and answered, confirming Richie's hope that he'd only been dead a few hours. He heaved a grateful sigh; there were worse fates than waking up in the morgue, and he had to remember that if he was going to get through the next few hours. Any more time dead and he might have ended up getting buried. Thinking about how close he might have come sent a shudder through him; he'd never had to learn how to escape from a grave, and there were no other Immortals in New York City who knew about him since Connor had moved back to Europe a few years ago, and thus no one who'd know to come dig him up.
Richie loved New York City, and as much as he knew he'd have to leave someday, he hadn't expected that someday to come so soon after arriving. Being a permanent adolescent in a city of over eight million people was easier than anywhere else he'd ever lived. Maybe he could just move to a different borough to start over. It wasn't like he had much to take with him. Anymore. He could sneak back to his old building tonight and see if his sword had survived the explosion. The lockbox with his money and backup paperwork should also be OK. His bike would be a loss, as would all his clothes, unless the fire department had gotten the fire under control quickly.
“Do you have any clothes I could borrow?” Richie turned toward Henry so fast that the man stepped back. “And maybe a few bucks for a cab? Unless my wallet is around here somewhere?” As soon as he said it, he groaned. His wallet was in his desk. He'd been in the sweats and tank top he wore for working out, which left no place to put a wallet, nor any reason to carry one. “Never mind. I didn't have a wallet on me.” He raked a hand over his head; he'd been growing his hair out in hopes of sneaking another year or two onto the identity by starting younger, and the water and soot stiffened curls felt so much like they had the last time he'd died in public that for a moment he forgot where he was.
“Your clothes are in evidence,” Henry answered. “I'm sure I can come up with some others, though I can't guarantee that they'll fit. I'd also suggest a shower. But I'm afraid that I can't let you leave.”
“Why not?” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how Henry planned to keep Richie from leaving. He bit the question back, not wanting to turn the situation antagonistic.
Henry's head was tilted and he was watching Richie, studying him in a way that made Richie feel a lot more self-conscious than being naked in front of this stranger had. “For starters, you're a material witness in a crime. The only witness, I might add.” He gestured at the other bodies. “No one else that we know of survived the explosion.”
Richie let his eyes drop closed for a moment in silent acknowledgment of the life lost. He didn't know who else had been in the building, but he knew that the toll was a lot higher than two. The other bodies were probably in the drawers or in cold storage somewhere. If the signs of damage to his own body was any indication, some of the other victims might even become permanent residents here because there wasn't enough left to identify.
“No one else escaped?” he asked, thinking of the person who'd sounded the warning and the others he'd seen on his way up the stairs. Some of them had to have been close enough to the door when the building blew up to have made it out.
Henry sighed the sigh of someone who knew that what he was about to say had no good interpretation. “We presume that everyone who made it outside before the explosion also managed to disappear into the woodwork. People in that part of town aren't fond of talking to the police.”
Richie nodded, well aware of both the attitude and the causes that spurned it. “Can you blame them? Half the people who live there have probably been arrested at some point. Or have reason to think they're going to be.” He certainly did. At least his own juvie record hadn't followed him to this life. But that didn't put him in the clear. The fact that he could easily get caught killing someone was never far from his mind after the way Martin Hyde had set him up all those years ago.
“Of course not.” Henry rubbed a thumb over his eyebrow. The gesture bared his wrist and revealed only unmarked skin. “Having their testimonies would make the investigation easier. Without them, we're limited to what we can learn from those who didn't survive.” He shot a knowing look at Richie. It was a look that carried a lot of weight.
“What if I told you that I didn't see anything?” Richie asked, grasping for the one out left to him.
“Did you?”
“No,” Richie said, then hoping to change the subject: “How long until that Lucas guy comes back? You said a few minutes....”
Henry gave a little start as if he'd forgotten that they could be interrupted any second. “Right. Yes, we can't have him seeing you looking...so alive.” He took in the empty exam table that Richie had been on. “And I'd better move one of these other patient people to the head of the line. Lucas will wonder how I finished with you so quickly, otherwise.”
“Yeah, not unless you're planning to tell him that the corpse got up and walked out.” Such a confession was always a possibility.
The private smile flashed across Henry's face again. “Your secret's safe with me. There's a locker room down the hall with showers. If you're careful, you should be able to make it without anyone else seeing you. Locker ten holds the Lost and Found. Anything of use you find in there, you can take. I'd recommend that you not go through the personal lockers-”
“I'm not a thief,” Richie interjected. Right now. He had been one before and he'd probably be one again-live long enough and all manner of skills had their uses. And their needs.
“My apologies,” Henry offered with a tip of his head. “I hope you'll come back after you make yourself presentable. I would dearly love to talk to you about what happened.”
“For the police report, right?” Richie asked, knowing full well that that wasn't what Henry meant.
Henry's response was only a lifting of his brows.
“Yeah, right.” Richie sighed. Without making any promises, he added: “Maybe.”
*~*~*
The shower gave Richie time to think. He watched the ash, soot, and blood run down the drain in gray and pink eddies and felt himself become more human by the second. No matter what else happened, he had to go recover his sword. A city the size of New York wasn't a safe place for an Immortal to walk around without his weapon, no matter what kind of legacy Connor had left behind. After that, he needed to find something to eat and a place to crash for the night. Reviving always left him starving and exhausted.
In the morning, he could try to scrounge up some cash. He cast his mind around, trying to remember where his other Immortal friends were living these days, and what names they were going under. He came up blank. He'd only been in the City a few weeks, himself, not even long enough to get used to his new name.
Then he had to worry about this Henry guy. The man was too smart, too observant. If Richie went back to talk to him, Henry would ask all the questions that Richie really didn't want to answer. Immortals worked hard to keep knowledge of themselves out of the regular world.
On the other hand, broke, homeless, and stranded in a new city, Richie really could use an ally.
The water was running clear now, so Richie accepted its offering of heat into his beleaguered muscles a few moments longer, then shut it off. He used the sheet as a towel, doing his best to avoid rubbing the dirtiest parts over his newly cleaned skin, then went to see what he could find in locker ten.
What he found was a pair of gray sweatpants that were so old and ratty that they had to have been “lost” on purpose. He also found a neon green muscle shirt and a pair of flip-flops that almost fit. He eyed the selection for a moment, then grabbed a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap. Thank god it wasn't winter yet, and that no one he knew would see him dressed like this.
Despite Henry's admonition and his own rejection of the label, Richie also riffled through the handful of personal lockers that didn't have locks on them. Tucked in the corner of one woman's jean's pocket, he found a folded ten dollar bill and took it. He wasn't a thief, but he needed the money right now if he was going to get across town. Making note of the locker number, he vowed to pay her back as soon as he could.
Now that he was clean and...not wearing a sheet...he moved to address his other needs. A survey of the floor yielded the employee lounge, in which he found a box with a couple stale donuts left over from the morning and a Keurig. This, he justified to himself, wasn't thieving because they were here for anyone to eat, so he did, wolfing down the donuts so fast that he nearly choked himself on inhaled crumbs.
He was still doubled over, coughing, trying to clear his lungs when a pair of sneakers appeared in his field of vision.
“Um, hello?” their owner said.
Richie waved, both to fend off any would-be help and to acknowledge that he'd heard the speaker and was unable to answer.
“Not that I’m not digging your personal style, but I’m pretty sure it’s not casual Friday. Who are you?”
Through streaming eyes, Richie took in the speaker. Light brown hair, narrow face, tall, in blue scrubs over a black shirt. Not Henry, and certainly not bearing the quiet confidence that Henry had. “Ignore me,” he gasped out. “Just swallowed wrong.”
“Are you sure?,” the man asked. He took a couple steps closer, hovering anxiously. He pointed to the coffee cup. “Is that the Jet Fuel brand? Better watch out. I swear I had acid for a week after one cup.” His face lit up, a little overeager. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before. You new here?”
Richie coughed the last of the crumbs into his hand, glanced at the now unappealing bite of donut that remained, and pitched it all into the garbage. “Oh. Yeah. I'm, uh...” He cast about for an excuse, and his eyes settled on the cup of coffee that had just finished brewing. “I just came down to get some coffee for the, uh, boss. I'm the intern.”
“An intern? Don’t you guys have your own machine upstairs?”
“Yeah. The boss… really likes that Jet Fuel stuff.” Richie cringed at the lack of finesse to his lies. He was usually a lot suaver than this. Straightening up, he grabbed the coffee and a handful of creamer and sugar packets. “I'd better get this upstairs before the boss flips out.”
“Hey, I totally get it. My boss gets crazy, too, all, ‘no Lucas, I will not drink tea made in a machine.’” He mimicked spitting something out, face scrunched up.
Ah, so this was the Lucas from before. “Yeah, haha,” Richie said. “Bosses.” Keep it vague; let the listener hear what he wanted to hear; get out of the situation as quickly as possible. He'd learned all this shuttling through the foster care system, and yet it was still tempting to embellish the details. He started for the door and had almost made it when Lucas spoke again.
“Hey, but seriously, why are you dressed like that? Some prank on the new guy?”
Lucas really wasn't going to let it go, was he? Richie glanced down at his outfit-of-discards that were too mismatched to even pass off as a dress down day. He looked like a college student who'd just rolled out of bed five minutes before the start of his key final exam, not an intern in a city office. He opened his mouth to snap off a witty comeback, and his brain mutinously refused to supply one. “Look,” he managed, “I really have to go before the boss notices I’m gone and, yeah.” He lurched toward the door and its promise of escape.
“Hey!” Lucas stepped in front of him, and Richie dodged to the right, grateful for his trained reflexes. At least they still worked.
His plastic-clad feet slipped on the Linoleum floor as he scrambled past, a quickly thrown out hand all that kept him from careening into a wall. The sugar packets flew from his grip. He didn’t stop to pick them up.
“You forgot your coffee,” Lucas called after him.
*~*~*
One of the things that Richie loved about New York City was that no one cared how he looked. He'd been hoping to capitalize on that when he moved here. Since leaving Seacouver, he hadn't been able to live in any one place for more than three or four years before his youthful appearance caught up with him. Here, he hoped, he might be able to push for five or six years. Maybe more, if he planned carefully about what parts of the city to live in. He'd never be able to put down roots in a place, not like Mac or Methos or any of the other Immortals who could live fifteen, twenty years in an identity before needing to move on, but maybe he could stay long enough to not feel like a stranger.
He found a bus that would take him in the direction of his neighborhood and boarded it without so much as an askance look from the driver. He had something resembling a shirt on his chest, something resembling shoes on his feet, and enough money to cover the fare.
The bus dropped him off a half dozen blocks from his building, which meant he had to walk. The night air was cool, raising a chill on his arms, and the streets busy enough that he didn't have to worry about another Immortal surprising him. Even so, he kept himself alert, noting the entrances to alleys and the proximity of all the myriad storefront churches that seemed to spring up in buildings that had outlived their commercial use. Several times, he had to stop to let the blisters on his feet heal.
He smelled the disaster first. The acrid reek of burned wood and plastic hung heavy in the air and he slowed his pace, wanting to drag out those last inevitable moments before he had to face the reality of the loss of his home. Turning the corner, he saw it: the husk of the old building. Its windows were gone, their glass littering the sidewalk in chunks that glimmered under the yellow glow of the street lamps. The shards would have been pretty were it not for what they meant.
For a long moment he stood, taking it in. The explosion had really happened. Everything he owned was gone.
Ignoring the glass-his feet would heal from that, too-he pushed past the crime scene tape and stepped through empty frame where the front door used to be. There were no lights inside save what filtered in from the street, which meant he had to rely on what little spatial memory he'd been developing as he navigated the wreckage of the interior. The ceilings and walls still stood, which he assumed meant that the explosion itself had been on the top floors and the resulting fire had destroyed everything else. It was hard to breathe. Noxious fumes filled the air and everything he touched was either soaking wet or still smoldering.
Eventually, he worked his way to where his office had been. The door was gone, probably fallen to the floor or burned away entirely, and the rest of the room was swallowed in darkness. Feeling dizzy, but not about to quit now, he went in. With shuffling steps he pushed through the debris, burning his toes, his fingers until he found the remains of the wall where his sword hung. Leaving it there had been a compromise that allowed the weapon to be nearby without being in reach of eager and naive hands who knew about the dangers of guns but not blades.
Richie could too well remember being a teenager in a world before he knew about Immortals, and how he viewed swords and sword fighting as unutterably cool, and also so antiquated that he couldn't conceive of swords being weapons in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same purpose, as the switchblade he sometimes kept in his pocket or the handguns that so many of his friends kept in their waistbands. Ironically, it had only taken two shots to the chest for him to start to appreciate how much more deadly swords could be.
He found it, the hilt joining his hand as if it had been searching for him, too. The metal was warm, but didn't feel warped or damaged in the cursory pat down he was able to give it. His relief at being armed again was so immense that he almost passed out again right there. Of everything he'd owned, his sword was the one thing he had no way to replace. Holding it close, he resumed looking for the lockbox.
It wasn't there, not in the remains of the desk nor on the sodden bookshelves where trophies from past competitions had been melted into heaps. Someone else must have gotten to it first, maybe one of the police officers or a firefighter? He groaned and gave serious consideration to letting the fumes overtake him. Only the thought of waking up in Henry's morgue again kept him moving. He could come back in the morning, he decided, to make a more thorough search by the light of the day.
As soon as he made it back outside, he cleared a patch of cement in front of the wall and sank down to catch his breath.
The night had settled down hard while Richie had been inside the remains of the building. The street was as quiet as he'd ever seen it, everyone who had a place to go having decided to go there. In the apartments across from him, he saw a few lights, a few shadows of movement as people crossed in front of their windows, but even the music and shreds of arguments that always seemed to spring up when the sun went down were absent. People were laying low, staying quiet: A reaction to the police presence from earlier, respect for their dead neighbors, fear that they could be next.
Richie sat with his sword cradled across his lap and stared out into that silence. He'd had to change lives a few times since becoming Immortal, but never like this. Never as the result of everything he'd built being yanked out from under him. He'd come close in Paris when he died in front of everyone during his first big race all those years ago. It had been devastating, but ultimately all he'd done was return to Seacouver and pick up his old life where it had left off. This was the first time he didn't have an old life to return to, the first time he would be moving to the next one without any semblance of moving forward, or any safety-net to fall back on.
The crunch of footsteps on glass drew his attention to the man approaching him. The swirl of a long coat set him on guard and he tightened his grip on the hilt of the sword, though he didn't stand up. The man came to a stop in front of Richie, positioned so that the street light illuminated an already familiar face.
“It's not necessary to leave,” Henry stated. His hands were shoved in his pockets and he held the coat tight around him, making Richie aware for the first time that the night was cooler than he'd thought. “I thought I'd find you here.” When Richie didn't say anything, he continued. “We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Dr. Henry Morgan.” He wasn't close enough to offer his hand for a shake, so he gave a short bow instead. The gesture had an antiquated flare that reminded Richie strongly of Mac.
“Richie.” He didn't offer a last name because he didn't know which one to use.
Henry acknowledged his name with a tip of his chin. “Well, Richie. As I was saying, I believe your plans to leave are a bit premature.”
“I died,” Richie reminded him. The words were clipped, bitter. “I can't exactly stay here.”
Henry drew a breath and cast his gaze up and down the street, taking in the dilapidated buildings, graffiti, and garbage strewn gutters. He didn't give away what he thought of what he saw, but the knot of his tie and hard creases of his collar, the quality of his coat, and the cut of his hair indicated to Richie a man who couldn't imagine why anyone would choose to live here. That he was about to explain why Richie could stay didn't matter. Richie felt himself growing preemptively defensive and he struggled to his feet so that when he had to defend his choices, he could at least be on an equal level. He was almost knocked back over when Henry said, “None of them saw you.”
For a moment, Richie thought that Henry was referencing his earlier comment about witnesses staying quiet, but Henry continued his explanation with all the calm recitation of someone who'd given a great deal of thought to the topic.
“Everyone in the building died. Everyone who made it out was worried only about themselves and their families. Any recollection they have about who was inside and who wasn't can only be supported by the evidence, and since you're clearly not dead, they'll have to assume you made it out. The only people who know know differently are the firefighters who carried your body out and the paramedics who transported you downtown, and I can guarantee that they won't recognize you whole and with a pulse.”
Hearing it put like that, Richie slumped back against the wall. The last time he'd ended up in the morgue, he'd died in front of thousands of witnesses. Somehow it had never occurred to him that two disasters didn't go hand-in-hand. No one had seen him die. People might look at him and see a miracle, but not the kind he was afraid of them seeing.
“No one saw anything,” Henry repeated, as if he needed to convince Richie of that truth.
Richie started to nod, then realized that the truth wasn't that simple. Someone had been watching, hadn't they? Two someones, in fact. The first he didn't need to worry about. It was the other, the one who had been staring at him right before the explosion whom he did. He wondered if that person knew what was about to happen and wanted to see it happen to him. He scanned the shadows along the doorways and the edges of the buildings looking for the one person who wasn't supposed to be there, and the one person who was. Seeing neither, it occurred to him that the explosion had claimed both of them as victims, after all.
“The other people who were killed,” he started, only continuing after Henry indicated that he was listening. “Was one of them a black woman, about twenty-five?” He didn't know her name because they'd never met; he wasn't supposed to know she existed. “She'd have a tattoo on the inside of her wrist.”
“What did the tattoo look like?”
Richie described it as best he could. He'd only seen the design a few times, but some things were hard to forget. He knew she wore one. He'd sought its presence out on purpose after he'd caught her following him around. As soon as he knew for sure who she was, he'd forced himself to stop seeing her and to get on with living his life as if she wasn't there keeping notes.
Henry frowned in thought, then shook his head. “I don't recall anyone with that tattoo. Who is she? Your girlfriend?”
Richie took a second to bask in the news. “No.”
“Does she have something to do with the explosion?”
“Not that I know of,” Richie answered, honestly. He had to find a phone. His own was somewhere in the burned out desk, but he thought he remembered seeing a payphone in one of the bodegas he'd passed on his walk. He only hoped it still worked; there was one person he knew who didn't change identities, had never changed phone numbers, and who might be able to tell him how to get in contact with one of the other Immortals in the city-as long as he wasn't Hunting them, and right now playing the Game was the last thing he wanted to do. “Thank you for helping me.” He offered as much of a smile as he could feel right now. “I have to go take care of some things
Henry hurried after him. “You're going to walk down the street carrying that sword?” He sounded alarmed.
Richie glanced down at blade swinging by his side. “Bastard.”
“What?”
“The sword. It's a Gothic Bastard.”
“No doubt a treasured heirloom, which is why you went back to dig it out of the rubble. However, do you really think that walking around openly with it is a good idea? What if someone calls the police?”
That pulled Richie up short. He normally kept the sword in his coat, as all Immortals did, and didn't bother with what the police thought. Oddly enough, the recent spread of concealed and open carry laws only covered guns. There was no such thing as a sword permit. However, if there was a secret to concealing a sword in a muscle shirt, no one had bothered to teach it to him. “I'm not leaving it behind.”
“No, I wouldn't expect you to. Perhaps you'll let me carry it for you?” He gestured down the length of the coat he was wearing. It wouldn't have the built in sheath that an Immortal's coat did, but it was definitely long enough to make a decent temporary cover.
“Why?”
Henry clapped a hand on Richie's shoulder and turned him so they were face to face. “I'm hoping that if I help you, you'll help me.”
“You've already helped me,” Richie pointed out. “Waking up in the morgue sucks bad enough without having to sneak around town in a sheet.” His eyes narrowed in realization that he was incurring debts that he really didn't want to pay off. Immortals had always made a point to keep themselves hidden from mortals, and so far Richie had managed to go three decades without changing that.
“That does beg the question: where were you planning to sneak to? You were living in that building, yes?”
With a shrug that freed his arm, Richie started back down the sidewalk. “Look, I just wanna make a phone call. This has been an amazingly awful day, and the sooner I can get it over with, the better.”
Reaching into his pocket, Henry pulled out a cell phone and held it out for Richie to take. “You can use mine. Don't worry about any long distance charges.” His brow furrowed as if he thought he'd said something wrong, but he recovered quickly. “I hope you know how to use one of these. I had to get it for work, and so far I haven't mastered more than learning to answer it.”
“Yeah, I know how to use a cell phone,” he sniped, without making any move to take it. The offer was tempting. He'd been planning to call Joe collect-contingent on the pay phone working at all-with the assumption that whomever answered at the bar would accept the charges. Barring that, the small collection of change in his pocket might be enough to get a couple minutes of call time.
“You can delete the number as soon as you're done with the call,” Henry added with a sigh. “It's my understanding that that's easy to do, though I haven't had reason to try it for myself.”
Reluctantly, Richie handed over his sword. Henry accepted it, checked its weight and balance like he knew how to handle swords, and tucked it inside his coat. With his arm canted across his body like he'd injured it, he anchored the sword into place. The phone switched hands next. Richie keyed in the number, heard the rings, counted to himself as they passed. Voice mail. “Damn!” He left a message, keeping it vague but putting as much urgency into what he did say as possible. “Call me back as soon as you can,” he concluded, “And, don't worry, I'm not going to lose my head over this.” There, that should give Joe some idea what was going on. Between that and his Watcher's report, Joe might even refrain from bludgeoning him with his Oath.
“Try again later,” Henry suggested gently.
“Sure,” Richie agreed.
“In the meantime, I haven't had a chance to eat dinner. Would you care to join me? My treat.”
Richie thought about refusing, but he really did need more than a stale donut. By using Henry's phone, he'd also tethered himself to the man until Joe called back. And he'd handed over his sword, too. Goddamn, did dying make him stupid. On top of all that, what was one more stupid thing? Glancing around to make sure there were no prying ears, he said, “I'm Immortal. That's what you really want to know, right?” He splayed his hands in a silent “there it is,” and internally braced himself for the fallout.
Henry blinked hard and gave him the once over that came of seeing someone with new eyes. “Then, why was there a body...”
“I can die,” Richie said, mistaking the direction of Henry's question. The man had seen him come back from the dead; what more proof did he want? “Obviously. It's just not permanent. Or fun.” He rubbed a hand over his close-cropped curls, the hat having fallen off somewhere in the building, and chided himself again on his poor choices.
Once more, Henry glanced up and down the street. It remained quiet, but they both knew that could change at any second. “If you don't object, I suggest we adjourn to someplace private. I took a cab here. It's right down the street with the meter running. The cabbie is probably wondering if I'm planning to return. Shall we ease the poor man's mind?” He moved as if to start walking away, thought better of it. “I think we have some things to talk about.”
Getting in cars with strangers was supposed to be the worst kind of stupid. Especially strangers who picked you up on the street and offered free food. A last glance at the wreckage of his home told him that he really had no choice. Richie shrugged. What could happen? It wasn't like he could get killed. “Why not?”
“Very good,” Henry responded. He made a sweeping gesture to indicate the way, and nearly dropped the sword.
As they were approaching the cab, Richie decided to return a little of the aid he'd been given. “You'll want to sit on the driver's side.”
“You have a preference?”
“Nah. It's just that it's easier to slip the sword between the seats and the door than it is to stab it through the cushions. Cheaper, too.”
In the bright headlights from the cab, Richie couldn't miss the shocked expression on Henry's face; the look of someone who thought he had it all figured out discovering that he was wrong.
*~*~*
They made the trip to Henry's in silence, by mutual agreement that the biggest topics should be saved for when they could both give their full attention and when no one else was listening, and the smaller topics weren't worth the waste of air. For once, the traffic cooperated and the trip passed without any hitches.
Only as they were walking into his building, the sword once again tucked into his coat, did Henry say, “I'm sorry; I should have thought to tell you sooner: I don't live alone.”
Richie's brows shot up. “Yeah, you should have mentioned that before now. That's what we call 'useful information.' What do you have? A wife? Kids?” He tried to picture Henry as a family man with a brood of dark-haired children climbing up his knees, and found that the image came easily. Yeah, he should have anticipated that their 'private' discussion would not be entirely alone.
Henry's mouth curled into an indulgent smile, yet a darkening in his eyes hinted at a deeper pain. Richie recognized the look of someone who had lost a loved one and who still wasn't able to think about them without pain. “Let me introduce you. For what it's worth, I trust him completely.”
He led the way inside and gave Richie a moment to take in the well-appointed apartment. It was the kind of place that had been lived in for a long time by someone with expensive tastes and the pocket book to indulge them. The eye that Richie had developed as a thief noted several antiques on display that would be worth a small fortune to the right buyers. He let out a low whistle in appreciation, and kept his hands to himself.
“Where would you like this?” Henry asked, handing over the sword as if he had complete trust that the stranger he'd just brought into his home wouldn't do any harm, even when given a weapon. It was a pact, of sorts, and Richie accepted it.
A glance over the room for likely hiding places revealed plenty of options. He could keep the sword next to him, on display and within easy reach, but his instinct for concealing it made that unappealing. He also didn't want to scare Henry's family, as he suspected that he'd be appealing to their generosity over the next few hours. Footsteps from the other room hastened his decision; he slipped the sword under the couch and spun around, hoping that he'd become good enough at this kind of subterfuge to keep the guilt off his face.
The person who entered was an older man, maybe ten years Joe's senior with graying hair and a bulbous nose. He had on beige slacks, an argyle sweater, and a pair of red oven mitts. “Henry? I did hear you come in. I was just putting-” He stopped on seeing Richie, a sweep of his eyes taking in the atrocious outfit and turning back to Henry with the unspoken question about why the person wearing it was here.
Henry clapped a hand on Richie's back, urging him forward and demonstrating the trust he'd extended in private. “Abe, this is Richie. He's a witness in a case I'm working on and he's in need of a place to stay for a few days.”
“The police are asking you to keep track of the witnesses now?” Abe asked.
“Richie's a special situation,” Henry explained. “Let's just say that I've taken the initiative.”
“They don't know he's here, do they?”
Henry's gaze dipped in awareness of his rule breaking. Awareness, but not shame, Richie noted.
Shaking his head in exasperation, Abe pulled off the oven mitts and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Richie. I'm Henry's room-”
“-Son,” Henry supplied. “Abe is my son.”
Abe intoned Henry's name like a warning and Henry challenged him back with the kind of glare that fathers gave their recalcitrant children, that MacLeod had hit Richie with a million times during that first year Richie lived with him and a few thousand times after, and Richie knew that he was hearing the truth.
He continued the handshake and the rest of the pleasantry because there was no reason not to, then stepped back and took a long, hard look at Henry. By admitting that Abe was his son, Henry had revealed that he was also older than he looked, and there was only one explanation for that that Richie knew of: immortality.
Immortals didn't show their age in the lines of their faces; that was half the point. Richie well knew the difficulty of judging someone's inside age based on their outside age. He'd also been around Immortals long enough, and had been one long enough, to start to recognize some of the more subtle ways that age showed: the favoring of a posture or gestures that people their apparent age didn't use, anachronistic manners or speech patterns, the flash of bafflement when confronted with a particularly modern attitude or expectation. He'd seen the way Henry had handled the sword. The bow of greeting. The phone. He'd caught all the clues, and simply hadn't put them together.
Because he couldn't feel Henry. Immortals had always been able to sense others of their kind. Without it, the Game would be an exercise in stealth and assassination, and the only protection would be complete seclusion. The mere thought of an Immortal who didn't advertise his Presence made Richie's stomach tie itself in a hard knot, his mouth go dry. He'd hated having to learn to kill the others, but he hated more the helplessness of not having the chance to try.
“How?” he asked, dropping bonelessly onto the couch.
“Abe, would you be so kind as to get Richie some decent clothes. I think I have some that will fit him. And put together a couple plates. Neither of us have had a chance to eat dinner.”
Richie didn't hear how Abe responded or if Henry said anything else to him. The next thing he knew, Henry was squatting on the floor next to him, pressing a glass of water into his hand. “It was a shock to me too the first time I met someone else like me. Take some deep breaths; fainting won't do either of us any favors. I assure you, I am immortal, just like you are.”
Richie shook his head, frustrated because Henry was talking about the wrong things. “No, you're not, you can't be...” He gulped for a breath, then sought to center himself like during a battle, when not being in control would only get himself killed. It took a minute, and Henry gave it to him.
“I was shot,” Henry explained. He opened up enough buttons on his shirt to reveal the pucker of scar tissue over his heart where the bullet had entered. No one could have survived what caused that wound; Richie certainly hadn't. “I died. I came back. That was...a long time ago.” He said the last like he was withholding the number because he thought it would be too unbelievable. “I haven't aged a day since.”
Richie nodded along. He knew the shtick. He just didn't know how Henry didn't register a Presence. Rubbing his hands over his face, he debated how to bring this up to Joe. Maybe the Watchers had records of this kind of thing. Maybe Methos would know-though getting a straight answer out of him was never a sure thing
Henry stood up and stepped away. When he came back a moment later, he presented Richie with a selection of photographs. Old ones, showing an unaging face through time. “This is all the proof I can provide right now, besides my word.” In his tone, Richie heard the eagerness of someone desperate to be understood. Someone who was desperate for a person who could understand, fully and completely. Hadn’t this guy ever had a teacher? No sooner did he think the question than Richie had the answer: of course he didn’t; if no one could feel him, then no one would know what he was. “When I die,” Henry continued, “my body vanishes. I'm reborn in water.”
Richie’s head jerked up in surprise. That was different. “Water? Like some kind of baptism? You mean you're not just...dead?”
“I know it's hard to accept,” Henry stated. “Your resurrection was certainly more dramatic than what happens to me.”
It didn't sound like it, but Richie wasn't going to argue the point. He shuffled through the pictures, though he didn't need to. The oldest one was of Henry and a blonde woman and a baby. The woman's hairstyle dated the picture to the 1940s. He could do the math. He also knew that the oldest picture wasn't the oldest possible picture. “I believe you,” he said, handing the photos back. “You've obviously been around for a long time.” As one of the youngest in the Game, he'd had to learn to estimate the ages of his potential opponents based on their tells; knowing whether he going against someone with fifty years more experience than he had or fifty times more might be all that saved him. Reviewing what he'd observed, he said, “That's Abe in the pictures, isn't it? The baby? You only keep them around because they're important to him.” At Henry's nod, he continued, “I'd guess...you're older than a century but not ancient.”
“Abe has accused me of personally knowing the dinosaurs,” Henry responded with a short laugh.
“I think all kids say that about their parents.” Richie took a sip of water, then a longer swig when the first one didn't taste like anything it shouldn't. “I don't think you're that old. Two, maybe three centuries?”
A look of surprise crossed Henry's face. “You don't think multiple centuries is old?”
“I've known a few people who were older.” A lot older, he thought. So much older that he couldn't conceptualize what their lifespans even meant. Before Henry could ask about that, Richie pressed on with his real question, “Why can't I feel you?” He touched the back of his head where the sense of another Immortal started like a block of ice being dragged down his spine.
“What do you mean? Is there something wrong with your sense of touch? Are you suffering residual nerve damage from the fire? I can only imagine the trauma your body must have undergone regenerating as it did-”
Richie stopped him with a gesture. “Are you saying that you can't feel me, either?” He didn't know if that was a relief. Being completely insensate to other Immortals would be a liability that Henry would have to keep secret or he'd be taken out by the first headhunter who found out. It might be enough to keep him out of the Game entirely. Again, he touched the back of his neck, hoping the physicality would help Henry understand what he meant.
Instead of answering, Henry stood up, crossed over to the sideboard, and poured himself a drink. He hesitated a second, then poured a second one, which he brought over and set on the coffee table in front of Richie. “I assume you're also somewhat older than you appear?” he asked, with a nod toward the glass.
“Well, I'm still a few years shy of a century...” Richie cracked his first smile since the explosion, then decided to answer the question fairly. “Yeah, I'm old enough. I just turned forty-one.”
Nodding, Henry continued, “I'd like to hear your story. Or, if you prefer, I'll tell you mine, first.” He swallowed back his drink and thumped the empty onto the table, then settled into the chair next to Richie. “I'm beginning to suspect that our respective immortalities aren't the same at all.”
As much as he wanted the offered drink, Richie decided to stick with the water. His stomach chose that moment to remind him of one reason that was a good call. “Did you say Abe was going to bring in some food?”
“I asked him to wait in the kitchen until I got you settled. He knows my secret, but yours isn't mine to tell.”
Did telling a mortal about Immortals count if they already had one in their life? “Probably be easier if we did,” Richie suggested. “It'll be better if he hears it straight up than puts together the pieces on his own.”
“Are you absolutely certain?”
“If it'll get me a square meal, I'll tell anybody anything right now.”
Abe had to have been listening at the door because Richie had barely finished speaking when he came into the living room with three plates balanced on his arm like he was channeling his inner waiter. With a flourish, he set one in front of Henry, one in front of Richie, and the third in front of the empty seat on the couch. “Dinner is served!”
“You are welcome to join us,” Henry suggested, his tone drier than dust. “I'd say we should eat at the table like adults, but since we're only going to end up here again, we can save ourselves a few steps.”
From his pocket, Abe produced the silverware and began distributing it. “That sounds like a good plan. There's plenty more food in the kitchen, if anyone wants seconds.” His chore done, he lowered himself into the empty seat, yet stayed leaning forward in anticipation of whatever it was he thought Henry wanted to talk about.
“While we eat, we can bring you up to speed on the case. It's a very exciting one.”
“The case?” Abe asked, his eager expression dimming.
Richie had cut off a huge bite of the stuffed chicken breast and shoved it into his mouth. Still chewing, he decided to have his own fun. To Henry, he said, “Actually, I'd like to know what you think happened. The official story, ya know? I mean, I remember the explosion, but then I was dead for most of the afternoon. Did I miss anything good?” Shoving another bite in his mouth, he started counting silently until Abe worked through what he'd said.
It took almost twenty seconds before Abe started opening and closing his mouth wordlessly, and another ten before he looked to Henry for confirmation that he'd heard correctly. When he finally spoke, all he could manage was one word: “Dead?”
“Hm?” Henry inquired, as if he hadn't been paying attention. “Did I not mention that Richie's story is also going to be long?”
*~*~*
On to Part Two